Conservation Partners connecting working lands conservation from the Gulf of Mexico to the High Plains with the vision of a sustainable landscape of natural resources resilient to the threats and stressors associated with our changing world.

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The Gulf Coast of Texas is an important wintering area for the endangered whooping crane. It has rebounded from only 21 birds in the wild in the 1940s to around 600 today. Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Saline prairie in east Texas Courtesy of Toby Gray

The diamondback terrapin, a Southern Great Plains focal species, is native to coastal saltmarsh, estuaries, and tidal creeks along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Coasts. Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Making up a group of more than 20 freshwater mussel species, quadrula are a Southern Great Plains focal species found within the Mississippi River system. Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

An overarching priority of Southern Great Plains is improving hydrologic conditions, including water quality, quantity, and flow patterns. Changes to hydrology have damaged many prime habitats. Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The Texas horned lizard, a protected species in Texas and Oklahoma, is found in arid habitats throughout the south-central U.S. and northern Mexico.

The American oyster, a Southern Great Plains focal species, lives in tidal areas such as Louisiana’s coastal estuaries. Many other species use oyster reefs for foraging and shelter. Photo courtesy Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries

The mottled duck is a Southern Great Plains species. A major part of its population spends its entire life cycle within a small coastal area in eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Photo courtesy Ruth Elsey of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries

The original partnership included over 120 million acres, including areas within five states (Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas) in the south-central United States and portions of three states in northeastern Mexico (Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas).

The majority of the area is in eastern Texas, central Oklahoma, and northeastern Mexico, but it also includes the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico from Mexico north-eastward through Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as a small part of south-central Kansas.

Prime habitats within our shared interests in conservation range from tallgrass prairie and semi-desert shrublands, to oak hardwood and pine forests, to tidal wetlands and barrier islands.Several major waterways lace through our SGP area, including the lower Rio Grande, Guadalupe, Brazos, Trinity, Nueces, Arkansas, Red, San Antonio, and Mississippi Rivers, as well as some of our continent’s most wildlife-rich coastal wetlands.

These waterways not only serve as a lifeline for wildlife, they also contribute significantly to our economic prosperity because of their importance to tourism and outdoor recreation, commercial fishing, and shipping and transportation. The area’s water resources also provide groundwater supplies for some of our fastest-growing population centers.

More than 500 kinds of birds and 300 butterfly species can be found within the Southern Great Plains landscape, including the northern bobwhite, eastern meadowlark, black-capped vireo, and monarch butterfly. Other well-known species include the blue crab, Guadalupe bass, diamondback terrapin, horned lizard, ocelot, ornate turtle, redfish, and spotted skunk.